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Mission Statement: People’s Justice League is a grassroots community organization working to support safe streets, campuses, establishments, and gathering places in Southeast Ohio through community education and activism. We know that for many people, navigating public space is fraught with harassment and violence simply because of who they are. Our programming works to address this with a variety of platforms designed to eradicate bias, harassment, discrimination, and abuse targeting any part of a person’s perceived identity. This includes but is not limited to race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, and disability. We work to create long-term networks of support that will empower our spirits to continue to thrive, despite the oppressions we face. For more information about ongoing programming, please see our Programs page.

Vision Statement: We envision a world free from all forms of domination where all people have free and equitable access to public spaces, services, information, and institutions and no one must fear harm by any person or institution on the basis of perceived identity.

We value:

Consent Culture: We value enthusiastic verbal consent in all intimate activities. This can be practiced with everything from borrowing a treasured item, to hugging your grandma, to calling your date a sweet name, to sexual intimacy. We work with youth to create a culture that no longer holds taboos about talking about intimacy and can go forth and be bold in stating their desires as well as their boundaries.

Survivor-Centered Analysis: We value the right of each individual to define their own experience and direct the outcomes of that experience. Some people choose to share their stories, engage in activism, and/or report to the criminal justice system, and others do not. We honor each individual choice equally and encourage people to do what feels right under their unique circumstances.

Difference: We recognize and honor differences across cultures and work to create programming that meets the needs of our varying communities. We work to recruit staff, interns, and Board members from diverse backgrounds with diverse skills and experience.

Social Justice: We acknowledge that women, LGBTQ folks, people of color, people of targeted faiths, and differently-abled people disproportionately face both interpersonal and structural oppression. We work toward equity and the elimination of structural barriers by providing extra support to people of targeted communities and through working with institutions to create equitable policy, procedure, and training programs for their members/staff.

Environmental Stewardship: Appalachia has long been used as a sacrifice zone for polluting industry, leaving poor and Indigenous people with little or no recourse when their health and homes are destroyed. We see environmental justice and social justice as deeply intertwined. We stand in solidarity with all environmental justice workers around the world.

Through our new app, you can anonymously report hate incidents whether you were a target or a bystander, read incidents, show your support by clicking the “I Got Your Back” counter, navigate incident locations on our interactive map, anonymously submit new incidents, and find Active Bystander Coalition member businesses.

We hope that with the addition of the mobile app, PJL will be able to collect even more stories in 2018. Creating a public database of such incidents will help keep community members informed and better prepared to address potential threats in our neighborhoods. We also hope that area residents will continue to stand up as active bystanders and support targeted individuals in the region.

What to post

We see all experiences of harassment as valid. We believe that any infringement on personal space or unwarranted comment (verbal or non-verbal) without an attempt to initiate a respectful, consensual dialogue constitutes harassment. This definition is not exclusive. Our work recognizes that harassment is experienced differently by different people, and we support the right to define harassment on one's own terms. Someone's experience of harassment and public space will be directly influenced by the identities that they carry with them into the world and the way that those identities intersect with each other. You can report harassment targeting any part of identity, including but not limited to race, religion, gender, sexuality, or disability. You can report any incident depicting bystander intervention, whether it happened to you or someone else, whether it happened recently or in the past.

Anti-Racism Statement

Initiatives combating various forms of sexual harassment and assault have continually struggled against the perpetuation of racist stereotypes, in particular, the construction of men of color as sexual predators. This stems, in part, from the violent history of racism in the United States, wherein Black men were commonly unjustly accused of assaulting white women as an excuse for white supremacists to form lynch mobs. Because of the complexity of institutional and socially ingrained prejudices, we prioritize resisting direct as well as unconscious and unintentional reinforcement of social hierarchies. It's not wrong for survivors to speak their truths as they are, but it would be wrong for an organization like ours to circulate incident reports that may inadvertently perpetuate these stereotypes. If you feel that race is important to your story, please make sure its relevance is explained clearly and constructively in your post. We reserve the right to edit out descriptors of harassers when needed in order to avoid reinforcing these stereotypes.

Legal Disclaimer

Although our organization believes and supports survivors, we safeguard ourselves against legal action by stating that all stories shared through the People's Justice League Incident Reporter are alleged and not fact-checked by anyone from our organization. The majority of the stories shared on our page are done so anonymously, leaving little ability for follow up. Despite this fact, we believe you. It's not your fault. We've got your back.